The decision to establish the TV company was taken in connection with the shutdown of the ATR TV channel, whose leadership failed to obtain a new broadcasting license from Russia’s media watchdog

MOSCOW, April 8. /TASS/. The Crimean Tatar public television will be broadcasting in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov told TASS on Wednesday.

"A decision has been taken to establish the public Crimean Tatar television. Which means that there will be programs in the Crimean Tatar language designed to be viewed by national audiences," he said. "In my view, this is the normal situation. The citizens understand everything," he added.

The decision to establish the TV company was taken in connection with the shutdown of the ATR TV channel, whose leadership failed to obtain a new broadcasting license from Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor because of procedural errors when submitting documents. Aksyonov earlier said that the errors could be made deliberately to overblow the scandal.

"The question is where this scandal originates," he told TASS. "Those who start it, care little about the excuses for it. These scandals are one of the elements of the ideological war."

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry has rejected any attempts to link the shutdown of the ATR media holding on the Black Sea peninsula to violating the freedom of speech and infringing upon the rights of the Crimean Tatar media. "The hue and cry whipped up by a number of foreign partners and human right groups around the ATR media holding causes perplexity. The attempts to attribute the situation to violating the freedom of speech and infringing upon the rights of Crimean Tatar media are groundless and outrageous," the Russian Foreign Minister said.

The diplomats noted that ATR had plenty of time since May 2014 for preparing all necessary documents in a proper way. "One gets the impression that the real reason for the termination of broadcasting was the deliberate sabotage of the Russian legislation requirements by the owners of the media holding," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has also urged to stop inflaming the situation in the field of inter-ethnic relations in Crimea and reminded that the Crimean Tatar, Ukrainian and Russian languages enjoyed equal status on the peninsula enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea.".